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Half Of Detroit Street Lights To Go Dark

Half of Detroit’s street lights will soon be going dark in an effort to save the city money.

Detroit’s population has been shrinking and the city will start shutting off the street lights in sparsely populated communities.

Chris Brown, Detroit’s COO, said:

“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population. We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”

The city is now deciding what area will go dark. Which is no easy task. Business owners are worried about the crime rate exploding once the lights go out.

amahl Makled, 40, said he’s owned businesses in southwest Detroit for about two decades, most recently cell-phone stores. He said they’ve have been burglarized more than a dozen times.

Jamahl Makled, a business owner in South Detroit, said:

“In the dark, criminals are comfortable. It’s not good for the economy and the safety of the residents.”

The city, according to Crains Detroit, has 88,000 streetlights. 40% of those streetlights are already broken and the city doesn’t have the money to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing has proposed a plan to borrow $160 million to upgrade the streetlights while reducing the total number to about 46,000. Maintenance on the upgraded streetlights will then be contracted out, which could save the city about $10 million a year.

The SF Gate reports that other cities, like Santa Rosa, California and Rockford, Illinois, have gone partially dark to save money. Detroit’s plan is more extreme, however, as half of the cities streetlights could soon be going dark. Detroit has a population of about 713,000 people over 139 square miles.

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16 Responses to “Half Of Detroit Street Lights To Go Dark”

Even though Detroit has been going downhill for decades, I suppose Obama will be accused of destroying the economy! Have you seen where the averagle salary for a CEO is over 9 million where a blue collor worker gets around $39,900! And they wonder what the Occupyers are concerned about.

sounds like a big chunk will be let go if they are going to outsource maintainance. have we not had enough displacement of middle class paying jobs for privatized just above starvation jobs for the workers and fat salries for the management of these political plum companies? what's wrong with this picture?

Detroit was my hometown as I was born and raised there, and such a beautiful city it was. Then the blacks came, then the city got it a black mayor by the name of Coleman Young, and it has been on a downhill slide ever since. The streets used to get cleaned twice a year, the trees were sprayed for Dutch Elm disease, the side streets were repaved, and the neighborhoods all had well kept homes. By the time I decided to leave in 1978, Detroit had one of the worst race riots in the country's history and the city was being destroyed, block by block. I grew up on the East side around Harper & Whittier and last year we went back to visit some old friends and we drove by the house I grew up in, and it made me sick to see it in such disrepair. I took pictures and then dug out some from former years to compare them, and it is now almost a ghetto, as there are no screens on the windows and the front doors are open wide for any bugs or anything else to enter, such as rats from all the garbage that is piled up by the street. But this is how they live and when a neighborhood becomes so bad, even for them, they move on to destroy yet another one. Want an idea of how to cure what ails Detroit? Have the city's population resort back to how it once was, the majority being white. This is not news as Detroit has been going dark for over 30 years, even when the street lights were still working.

you sound like a typical racist, first no one cares about your back story, if you love detroit and want to make a difference instead of typing paragraphs about how it was, do something to make a change now.

Why ? The ghetto rats would just destroy anything you try to acomplish. A city that is majority minority is a lost cause. Be it black, Mexicans, Middle Easterners or Africans they will destroy a city starting from the infrastructor down. So sad. to bad you can't get these people to work to get their city on its feet but their Democratic State Legislatures want to give away the farm.

Ryan Johnson You think in racism. . I was stating a fact. Ryan Johnson, if your so in love with this crippled city, do something to try and turn it around. Get rid of your Democratic political system and rebuild your once beautiful city. The trouble is, No one wants to work all they want is what is given to them. Such a shame and I know the truth hurts but that's the facts…

Tommy S. Buster First I never said i was in love with Detroit I dont live in Detroit, and I havent since the 1980"s I dont work in Detroit, I dont care about Detroit. Im not on here blaming a race of people for how Detroit is. Second you wrote that a "city that is majority minority is a lost cause" thats a racist comment. fact is there are more white people on welfare than black people so who really doesnt want to work.

Tommy S. Buster First I never said i was in love with Detroit I dont live in Detroit, and I havent since the 1980"s I dont work in Detroit, I dont care about Detroit. Im not on here blaming a race of people for how Detroit is. Second you wrote that a "city that is majority minority is a lost cause" thats a racist comment. fact is there are more white people on welfare than black people so who really doesnt want to work.